So the WinManiacs kicked my butt a bit over the HTC FUZE review. David Pogue was wrong, neither Apple Nuts nor BlackBerry nuts hold a candle to WinMo users scorn. However, I'd counter by saying they were so busy being indignant, they didn't really stop to consider the point of the round robin, or the points raised in the preview or final review. In other words, coming from where we're coming from, iPhone users approaching other devices, we were right, and the enraged WinManiacs... well... read on after the break!
With Macworld fast approaching, the rumor rate should begin increasing exponential. iTablets will be hot once again, of course, as will the iPhone Nano. Says MacRumors:
Microsoft has just unleashed their first iPhone app! And no, it's not Office. Or an Xbox gamer tag list. Or a Live Mesh client. Now, we make fun of our frenemies from Redmond plenty plenty, but as much as the regular Microsoft platform and services groups and their un-branding serve up humor-fodder galore, the Windows Labs team just make really cool technology previews. Take Microsoft Labs' Seadragon Mobile for iPhone (iTunes link). It leverages their deep zooming Photosynth technology to let you explore huge amounts of massive (think gigapixel) images quickly, and then zoom in for detailed, closer looks.
You see, there is this little event on December 12th in San Jose called the ADC (Apple Developer Conference): iPhone Tech Talks. Engadget says that John Geleynse, Director of Technology Evangelism at Apple, made some interesting statements Including:
Podcaster was rejected from the App Store for duplicating the (at that point upcoming) functionality of the built in iPod app. Seems like Podstreamer (Streamcaster in the Canadian store?!), however, made it in. While the two apps might not be identical, the situation does nothing to alleviate the appearance of capricious, near-random behavior from Apple's approval department. (Thanks benstinson for the tip!)
Next up, Daring Fireball reports that a CoverFlow-esque contacts app was rejected by Apple for using the private CoverFlow API.
Okay, well, only for the first few seconds at the very beginning when Dieter proves HTC pretty much made a point of matching the iPhone 3G form factor exactly. Same height. Same width. Same depth. Of course, it's plastic resistive screen isn't the same as the glass capacitive screen of the iPhone -- it's 800x480! (Compared to the iPhone's 480x320), and it packs an auto-focus 5 megapixel camera... (Along with TouchFlo 3D, about which we've done video all our own...)
UPDATED AGAIN: Pastebud founder, Jed Schmidt, via the comments, directs us back to Technologizer (see link below) for his update on what was happening:
I’ve updated this issue over at Get Satisfaction[1], but let me just summarize what exactly was going wrong: you were inadvertently forwarding your emails not to your secret pastebud address, but to the address set as the from address for these emails, which was noreply@pastebud.com.
This happened to other folks too; instead of sending email to secret-random-string@pastebud.com, they were sending to noreply@pastebud.com. And everyone who was doing this ended up sharing the same clipboard.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we’ve fixed it, and the changed will be live by the morning.
PREVIOUS UPDATE/PRIVACY WARNING: Technologizer is showing that they're getting other people's clipboard data in their paste results, including complete emails:
Pastebud’s site addresses security, and says it’s “safe enough” for general use. Based on my experience so far, I think not! But I don’t know if I’m running into some bizarre quirk or doing something wrong, or if this is happening to everyone who’s trying Pastebud as I speak. I just know that I’ve come to the conclusion that using a Web service as a substitute for a feature that should be in a device’s OS may not be such a great idea after all.
This might be a temporary glitch on the server side, but it's a very disturbing glitch and one that might just be a deal-breaker for the security and privacy concerned.
Holiday gift guide, iPhone 3G vs. BlackBerry Storm with special guest and public frenemy number one, CrackBerry.com's Kevin Michaluk, and live chat question and answer!
